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SOME OLD SITES 

^^ ON AN ':§%? 
OLD THOROUGHFARE 

And an Account of Some Early 
Residents Thereon 




. ' i r - '•- ' » 



PRINTED FOR 
MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY 

BOSTON 



r73 

, V\'3 A^i/ 



Copyright, 1918 

BY 

Macullar Parker Company 



A^^ 



^.^-rO^ i'WF^i, 




fiiisinesi Card nf Ihc old ]yashiiif;lon Cojfcc Hniise 



The lieadin^ io page s is from an engraxiyig published in " Gleasoii's Pictorial,' 

awl shows a portion oj the east side of Washington Street from 

Franklin Street south in iS^j 

Research Work by Walter K. Watkixs 



ARRANGED AND PRINTED BY DIRECTION OF 

WALTON ADVERTISING & PRINTING CO. 

BOSTON, MASS. 



©CI.A497553 
JUN -3 1918 



"U."^ \ 



m^m FOREWORD mmmm 

IN a previous history of Washington Street published by us, facts 
were presented concerning that section of the great thoroughfare 
between School and Milk, Summer and Winter Streets where the house 
of Macullar Parker has been located for more than half a century. 

Washington Street undoubtedly is the most notable and probably 
the longest highway in New England. Beginning as little more than 
a blazed trail, it has from century to century wound its irregular way 
until it has reached beyond Massachusetts borders into Rhode Island 
without changing its name. It has the distinction of being the first 
road laid out in the Massachusetts Colony, and, according to an order 
of June, 1636, it was begun as a footpath which led over the Neck to 
Roxbury. The order which concerns this famous "High Wave 
towards Roxburie" in the year 1636 is to the effect that "there shall 
be a sufficient footway from William Coleburne's field-end into 
Samuel Wyeborne's field-end next Roxbury, by the surveyors of 
highways before the last of the 5th month." 

This order shows that there were surveyors of highways in the 
Colony at this early date. Early W^ashington Street is supposed to 
have extended from the corner of Dover Street to the northerly 
Roxbury line, which was the south end of Boston Neck. The early 
road laid out towards Roxbury was on the easterly side of the present 
Washington Street, very near the beach, the road starting from near 
Beach Street. 

We count it a privilege to tell the tale of these early days and to 
place a permanent record of them in the hands of readers of history. 
The house of Macullar Parker has gathered these interesting facts 
concerning the former title-holders of the sites it has occupied on 
Washington Street, and has recalled various associations connected 
with former residents. As we have read the records of these early 
days, it seems but a short while ago that the Market Place existed 
and in the Puritan households were enacted the stirring scenes of 
the Revolution, while the stage coaches accompanied by the crack of 
drivers' whips and baying hounds drove up to the Washington Coffee 
House and the old Marlborough Hotel that travellers might be re- 
freshed. So we bring them back — those days — in which "mine host" 
plays no small part, and in which industry and trade contribute a 
valuable furtherance not only to the history of the Street but also to 
its development. 



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m^ SOME OLD SITES ON AN OLD J^ 
THOROUGHFARE 



THE HIGH ROAD AND THE iMARKET PLACE 

V^^HE business life and social activities of early Boston centred 
V_-^ about the Market Place near the site of the present Old State 
House. In less than two years after the order was issued for the 
establishment of a Market Place, the "High Road to Roxbury" — now 
Washington Street — was laid out. The first settlers located along the 
harbor front at the North End and Bendall's Cove, later known as the 
Town Dock. As business increased about the Market Place, home- 
steads were granted inland, following closely the line of Washington 
Street which passed the Market Place, the Governor's Spring, and the 
Watering Place at Bedford Street — on over the Neck to the mainland. 
The market was at first kept open on Thursdays, when a public lecture 
was held. A tavern — the first to appear in Boston — was opened by 
Samuel Cole, and John Coggan opened the first shop of merchandise. 
Within ten years from the laying out of the "High Road to Roxbury," 
the lots along it were granted on both sides of the way as far south as 
Boylston Street. Running east from the main street was a lane 
leading to a windmill near Fort Hill. This road was known as Mill 
Lane and is the Summer Street of to-day. 

The Market Place, as time went on, came to be the gathering-ground 
of the colonists. The life of the community centred there, and as the 
outlying districts became populated the country people were wont 
to ride "into town" to do their trading and to learn the news. There 
is an old legend — the truth of which has never been vouched for, but 
which is nevertheless interesting and has been repeated over many 

5 



The First 

Market 

Place 

The "High 
Road to 

Roxhury^^ 



An Old 
Legend 
■ichich 
concerns- 



SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 



a cup of steaming cider — which concerns the rural swain who rode into 
the Market Place, with his best girl mounted behind him on a sub- 
A Hogshead stantial horse. Prancing up to a stoop on which was a hogshead of 
0/ 1 asses j^^i^ggeg^ j-^g called out to his companion, "Now, Sally, you jump off 
and I'll go put up the horse and come arter you!" Sally did jump, 
depositing her solid weight on the head of the hogshead — which gave 
way and propelled her into syrupy depths. Farther and farther she 
sank, to Jonathan's dismay. Suddenly he turned and dashed with 
frantic gallops up Washington Street, muttering as he went, "I'll be 
dod durned if I pay for that ere molasses." Sally struggled in the 
meantime from her close but sweet imprisonment in the hogshead at 
the Market Place. 

EARLY TRADES-PEOPLE OF BOSTON 

The First It is a curious fact that the first settler on the site of the stores of 

Settler on the MacuUar Parker was a tailor by the name of Richard Hogg. His 

Stores of s^ory and a half thatched cottage of wood was no greater contrast to 

MacuUar the present buildings than was his trade compared to the volume of 

Farker business transacted to-day. The clothes of those early citizens were 

modest in cut and hue, and were worn to the extent of their usefulness 

Hog-g sells rather than being changed by the fashion of the day. Whether success 

his Business qj- failure in his trade was the cause of the change, Hogg disposed of 
to John Lake , ■ , , , • • , ir , t , t i i 
failor house and business in halt a dozen years to John Lake — also a 

tailor. 

Early A great number of the early trades-people of Boston came of the 

Trades- older and prominent families of England. Edward, a brother of 
people . 

of Boston J^^'^ Lake, was Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln, England, and 

Advocate-General for Ireland. He was also made a baronet. Another 

brother, Thomas, whose grandson succeeded him to the baronetcy in 

171 1, was a prominent merchant of Boston. 

J Saddler In 1648 the tailor's shop was replaced by that of another trade, and 

occupies Thomas Wiborne, a saddler, of a prominent Kentish family, began 
the Old Site, . , „,., ' ^, , ,. ,. , ^ 

business there. Wiborne came from the same locality as did Governor 

Hinckley of the Plymouth Colony. In the rear of the saddler's shop 

were several other workers of leather: Henry Rust, glover; John 

Barry, tanner; John Marion, shoemaker; John Gilbert, tanner; 

Nathaniel Bishop, currier. There was a lane at the rear of Wiborne's 

house, about two hundred or more feet back from Washington Street, 



SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 7 

extending from Milk to Summer Streets. From these workers of 
leather at different periods the lane was known as W iborne's, Gilbert's, 
and Bishop's Lane. It is now Hawley Street. 

Thomas Wiborne's son mortgaged his house and garden in 1685 to The Estate 
Simon Lynde, a prosperous merchant, formerly of London and Holland, passes to 
Lynde died in 1687, leaving a good estate to his children. Of his j^ , 
property, the Wiborne house came to Samuel Lynde, a son, as part 
of his share. Samuel Lynde married \Iary Ballard, daughter of 
Jarvis Ballard, and to them was born a daughter, Mary, who married 
John \ alentine, a lawyer. 

Mr. Lynde in 1709 gave to Mary and her husband the Wiborne The Wiborne 
estate. It had a frontage of hfty-five feet on iMarlborough Street, tlouse 
as that part of Washington Street had already been named, in honor 
of the great Duke of Marlborough. Other parts of Washington Street 
were then known as Orange, Newbury, and Cornhill. 

JOHN VALENTINE'S HOUSE AND SUCCESSORS 

The year following his marriage, John Valentine built on Marl- Valentine 

borough Street a brick house with a front of about fortv-seven feet builds a 

1 1 1 r • r T 1 J jj-4.- Bnck House 

and a depth or twenty-six leet. in the rear was a wooden addition 

for a kitchen. The old house of the first settlers — of timber and The Settlers' 

about eighteen feet square — Valentine removed to the lower part of House 
I • 1 J ...u u 1 1 removed to 

his orchard, on the back lane. Valentine's 

Valentine prospered. He was prominent in civil affairs, a notary Orchard 
public, and Advocate-General for the Crown for Northern New 
England. He acted as attorney in many prominent cases in the earh' 
part of the eighteenth century. As the years went on, a nervous 
breakdown seemed imminent, and, suffering from melancholia, John 
Valentine hung himself with his sash in an upper chamber of his house 
in 1724. 

Soon after her father's death, Elizabeth \'alentine married Joseph Joseph 
Gooch, a lawyer. His wife's wealth, as well as his own, gave Gooch Goochweds 
an idea that he should have a more influential position in Boston than Valentine 
his fellow-townsmen were willing to concede. He therefore changed 
his residence to Braintree, where he succeeded in being elected a 
representative to the General Court. His ambition was not satisfied 
with this, and he aimed to be made colonel of the Suffolk Regiment 
of the militia. Influence was brought to bear on Governor Shirley, 



SITES on a7i OLD THOROUGHFARE 



and the colonel of the regiment, John Quincy, was dismissed and Gooch 
appointed in his place. The officers, indignant at the dismissal of 
Quincy and also at Gooch's very apparent avarice, refused to serve 
under Gooch, and after a two years' term the people of Braintree 
elected another representative. So indignant was Colonel Gooch, he 
removed to Milton. 

The Valentine property went to Airs. Joseph Gooch and to her Valentine 
brother, Thomas Valentine, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Property 
James Gooch — a half brother of Col. Joseph Gooch. By a partition ^t^^ j -^ , 
of 1 741, the house in Marlborough Street went to Joseph Gooch and Gooch 
his wife. It had various tenants. About 1730, Abel Kiggell occupied 
half of the house. He married a daughter of Ensign Edward Breck. 
Kiggell died in 1742, and his widow married in 1749 Col. Joseph 
Buckminster of Framingham. While Kiggell rented the house, the 
shop was occupied by William Rallue (or Rillow). 

John Gooch, son of Col. Joseph and Elizabeth Gooch, was born in 
1737, and was married in 1770, shortly after his father's death, to 
Sarah Weaver of Milton. They occupied the Valentine house pre- 
vious to the Revolution. During the Revolution, John Gooch saw Johii Gooch 

active service as a captain of the 19th Continental Infantry, and ^^^'^-'^^ "? ^^^ 
, , . , 11,1 Revolution 

he served as assistant deputy quartermaster general, and he was also 

a Commissary of the Forage and had the rank of major. Major 

John died in 1784 — fourteen years after the death of his ambitious 

father. 

Adam Colson in 1780 obtained possession of the northerly portion 
of the house. Colson was by trade a leather dresser. John Colson, 
his father, had his apprentices plant the Paddock elms on Tremont 
Street, in front of the Granary Burying-ground, in the first half of 
the eighteenth century. The son, Adam, was an active patriot, a Adam 
member of St. Andrew's Lodge, which met at the Green Dragon. Colson, 
Adam was also a member of the Long Room Club, which met over 
Franklin's printing-office in Queen (now Court) Street. 

On the night of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, it was young Colson 
who shouted from the gallery of the Old South Meeting-house: 
"Boston Harbor a teapot to-night!" 

Colson, after buying the house in 1782, petitioned to have a license Colson 
to keep a tavern, as the location was favorable for the entertainment petitions to 
of the General Court and others from the country. After the Revo- ^ ^ 
lution he kept a shop in the house, leaving on his death in 1798 a 



SITES on a?i OLD THOROUGHFARE 



II 



large stock of goods for his widow, Christian (or Christiana) Colson. 
While the name of Marlborough Street was given in 1708 to that 
part of Washington Street now between School and Summer Streets, 
the name of Washington Street had been conferred on the part 



ji) thio Ton 

can coulJ temper 

on was hot, 

never \va» tritd, 
•s of tbt laiui ■» 
id can't be dtnkJ, 

I'ifpin, no kiudrcd lie 

to (jo ; 
■. ill Lis time 

on, but 'ftill 

ho will) 



TO HE SOLD\^^ 

Adam Collfon, 

At the Sisn of the Buck, and G^uvr, in 
J'JjjIivtau^l^-Sirc-t, No. jc. 
A Good ^flba-cment oiEnglifiGoods, 

■'- ■*• and the U-d tf Wopvcu's cluth Siioes &. 

Slipprrs; Men ifc Women'* Gloves as ufu^i — 

He li.'s alfo lur bale, a very genteel Cimriot, 

flroiig and handlom^;, with a good pair q1" 

Bay KorsKs, ajj excelleiu fecond hand Chaift 

and 8uikey, i:> complere order ;— Alfo, one 

doubltf and one lin^ie Horfe Slcigli. — As he 

I intends to leave the 1 i*wa, m about eight or 

Hhie Week"". 

^ rZr/i 7yZ.9 are d.Jp'^f.d to Purclofe, foM 

have a Bdrgain. 

N. B. Any Petfon di.'pofeJ to purchafe the 

! Horfes and Carriages, paying half the Money 

down, may have Credit for one year, for the 

remainder, g:ving fccurjty for the fame. 

His HOUSE will be to Let, and 

it is la very good Repair, an excellent good 
Stand Td- fcufincfs, a good Weil of Water, 
never Jels than 13 feet of water in the dryeft 
time, a haiidfotnc paved Yard,& a goodGordtn. 
B,,(l„n, Sff.t.. .8, 1-.Q3 



Tow n 

leave to , 

A great . 

Englifli, aiii^ 
iadlurcdby hioi 
Cloaks, &c. 

Alfo, alrcflifu^ 

fuitaKle foi 

MufFs and Tip 

the newefl Caihiorj iw 
which he wiH warr 
reduce(i ready Moi 
'4^ He is happy i 
preference has be( 
bufmefs — to merit 1 
tinguiihed patronagt 
dcavour. — All ordc' 
ledged. 

_- 



extending from Dover Street to near the Roxbury line less than a 
decade before the death of Adam Colson. The change occurred when 
the nation's first President visited Boston in 1789, though his name 
was not given to the whole thoroughfare until 1824, when Cornhill, 
Marlborough, Newbury, and Orange Streets "became one in name 
as well as in fact." 

The house and shop of Adam Colson in 1798 was a three-story brick 
building covering 1,332 square feet, and the land in the rear amounted 
to about 12,000 square feet. On Bishop's Alley was a two-story 
wooden house covering 1,674 square feet. Christian (or Christiana) 
Colson carried on her husband's business for six years and then 
married John Baker, a widower of Dorchester. She was Mrs. John 
Baker the third. Her business career having given place to domestic 



12 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 

Capt. felicity, the shop was occupied from 1804 to 1806 by Capt. Benjamin 
Benjamin and John Homans — booksellers. The former won some distinction in 
an Jo n^ Government service, having in 181 1 been appointed Secretary of the 
Booksellers State of Massachusetts and in 181 3 chief clerk of the Navy Depart- 
ment at Washington. In 1823 Captain Homans was appointed Naval 
Storekeeper at Portsmouth, but this new post was his for a very short 
time, as he died at Georgetown, D.C., in December of that year. 

The Homans were succeeded as tenants by James Murphy, who 
continued there until 1823. After the War of 1812-1815, the shop did 
an active business, as will be seen from Mr. Murphy's advertisement: 

Advertise- "Cheap Goods — No. 50 Marlboro St. by James Murphy. A variety of 
ment by English and French Goods, which will be sold at about peace prices. 
Al^i^ "Also a large assortment of elegant Looking Glasses, Britannia Tea Pots, 
silver Table and Tea Spoons. 

"Gold Necklaces, together with a quantity of other goods. — To be Let — 
a Brick House. 

"Also — two apartments in a back Store suitable for a mechanic" {Columbian 
Centinel, 8 Feb. 181 5). 

Mr. Murphy had married in 1803 Betsey, sister of David Colson 
Moseley, children of Unite Moseley and Eliza, sister of Adam Colson. 

In 1822 the dry goods shop of Jacob Myers was at 50 Marlborough 
Street, and the next year Edward Callender sold fancy goods there, 
and Thomas Bicknell, a shoe dealer, appears to have set up business 
in the shop. In the rear of Mrs. Baker's lot a house fronted on Bishop's 
Alley, and a part of it was a livery stable for the first quarter of the 
last century, the business being carried on by Andrew Morton — 
hackman. 

THE PHILOSOPHER IN BISHOP'S ALLEY 

In the house connected with it, during that period, were many 

Ralph tenants, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived there in 1823, 

fraldo shortly after his graduation from Harvard. The previous year he had 

lives in assisted his brother William in a school for young ladies which had 

Bishop's been established at their mother's house on Williams (now Mathews) 

^"O' Street in Boston. "I was nineteen," recalled Emerson, "had grown 

up without sisters, and in my solitary and secluded way of living, 

had no acquaintance with girls. I still recall my terrors at entering 

the school; my timidities at French, the infirmaties of my cheek, and 



SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 13 

my occasional admiration of some of my pupils. ... I was at the very 
time already writing every night in my chamber my first thoughts 
on morals and the beautiful laws of compensation and of individual 
genius, which to observe and illustrate have given sweetness to many 
years of my life." "Better tug at the oar," he wrote towards the 
close of a school year, "dig the mine, or saw wood; better sow hemp 
or hang with it, than sow the seeds of instruction." While teaching 
Emerson lived in Bishop's Alley, studying, observing, writing, a part 
of the Boston world — but not of it; content in seclusion to listen to 
the great preachers of the day. He brushed shoulders with those who 
frequented thriving Marlborough Street, and midnight found him 
poring over his books, or inscribing the philosophy which has guided 
thousands. 

OCCUPANTS OF 50 y 51 MARLBOROUGH STREET 

Mrs. Baker's husband died in 1S18, and thereafter she resided in 
different parts of the town, at one time with the family of Benjamin 
Bussey on Summer Street. In 1825 — the year after Marlborough Samuel 
Street became a part of Washington Street and 50 Marlborough (the Sumner the 
site of the present store of Macullar Parker Company) became 194 /^oj ^"'^'^ 
Washington Street — Samuel Sumner occupied the premises. His JVashingtoji 
family had been identified with the crockery and glassware trade for ■^^''^^^ 
three-quarters of a century in Boston. With Mr. Sumner were his 
sons, Stephen Salisbury and William Russell Sumner, and they occu- 
pied the store for ten years. 

The shop at 192 Washington Street in 1836 was occupied by a 
furnishing warehouse conducted by Ferdinand Herman, who sold tin 
and wooden ware. Previously he had been a maker of willow carriages 
on Water and Brattle Streets. 

Mrs. Christian Baker, after surviving her husband, Adam Colson, Death of 
forty-two years, died on the second day of December, 1840, at the ^^^fj- J^aker 
age of ninety-seven years. She left to David Moseley $1,000 and the Disposition 
estate on Washington Street which had belonged to the Colsons for of the 
more than a century. Bequests were also made to the children of "^operty 
James and Elizabeth Murphy. The Union Church (Essex Street), 
Amherst College, and the American Tract Society received $1,000 
each, and the American Bible Society was given $2,000. Two of 
Mrs. Baker's nieces, Elizabeth and Eleanor Raynes of York, Me., 



14 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 



were left $i,ooo each. The residue of the estate went to the Ameri- 
can Board of Foreign Missions and the American Education Society. 
A view of 194 Washington Street as it appeared for twenty years — 
between 1843 and 1863 — is shown in an engraving pubHshed in 1853 in 
Gleasons Pictorial.* This view also shows the three-story brick 
building adjoining on the south, numbered 196. This was formerly 
51 Marlborough Street and occupied the north half of the site where 
now stands the building numbered 400 Washington Street. It was 
built later than the Valentine house erected in 1710. At that time 
there was a live-foot passageway on the south separating it from the 
estate of John Marion, cordwainer, which existed until a decade or 
two before the Great Fire of 1872. The building at 51 Marlborough 
Street was disposed of by the Gooch heirs and came into the possession 
of Hannah, wife of Henry Sargent. 

The shop was occupied by various tenants: McFarlane, jeweller, in 
1800; Thomas Brewer, crockery; Dommett & Fairbanks, harness 
works; Miss Fish, milliner, in 181 5; Mrs. Turner's Toy Shop, 1820-25; 
Augustus Peverelly, confectioner, 1830; and Amos Webster's Coffee 
House in 1840 over the shop of J. Quincy Blake, fancy goods and 
jewelry. 
The Colson- Mrs. Sargent died in 1 841, and that year her husband purchased 
Baker Estate the adjoining property on the north — the Colson-Baker estate — from 

purciase ^j_^^ American Board of Foreign Missions and American Education 
by neiir\ _ ° 

Sargent Society. Daniel Sargent, father of Henry, was a merchant largely 

interested in the fish trade. Henry, born in Gloucester in 1770, was 

one of six sons all of whom attained a considerable degree of prominence 

in Boston. The one best known is Lucius Manlius Sargent, writer. 

Henry was gifted as an artist, and one of his first attempts was a 

landscape on the walls of a summer-house in his father's garden on 

Atkinson (now Congress) Street, Boston. When very young he 

made a copy of Copley's "Watson and the Shark," which Trumbull, 

when in Boston In 1790, praised with other work of the young artist. 

Sargent went to London in 1793, where he had the advice of both 

West and Copley. 

Sargent's Art did not lure Henry Sargent so far that he forgot his countrv, 

Military ^,^j there remain records of his military interests. As earlv as 1 799 
Interests . ' . 

he became an orderly sergeant of the Boston Light Infantry, of which 

his brother Daniel was captain. A commission was offered him in 

the regular army under Alexander Hamilton, who was commander-in- 

• See Heading to Page 5. 



SITES ofi an OLD THOROUGHFARE 15 

chief. Sargent's term was as short as that of Hamilton's. In 1805 
he was first lieutenant of the Boston Light Infantry and in 1808 he 
was promoted to the captaincy. In the defence of Boston in 1814 
his company worked at Fort Strong at East Boston to prepare it for 
the expected attack of the enemy, and it was at this time that Captain 
Sargent was made an aid to Governor Strong with the rank of 
lieutenant-colonel. 

As a military man he was involved in the Elliott-Austin duel at Serves as 
Providence, acting as second to young James H. Elliott, son of Gen. Second in 
Simon Elliott, who had been traduced in the Chronicle by William ^^ 
Austin. Mr. Austin had as his second Charles Pinckney Sumner, 
father of Charles Sumner. Throughout his service in the army 
Lieutenant-Colonel Sargent retained his interest in painting and 
engaged on a work of some magnitude. 

AN ACCOUNT OF HENRY SARGENT'S PAINTINGS 

Rev. William Bentley of Salem in his diary writes under the date 

of Oct. 7, 1803: "Mr. Emerson [Rev. William, father of Ralph Waldo, 

then minister of the First Church in Boston, and conducting the 

Monthly Anthology] politely waited upon me to the new Catholic 

Church, called Church of the Holy Cross. . . . The altarpiece, by ^4^ Allar- 

Mr. Sargent, is one of the largest works undertaken in our country, piece by 

It has undoubtedly great merit in such circumstances, but the rising ^^''K^^^ 
u J 1 J- J -I -J r , ■ M First 

breast and knees did not agree with my ideas of anatomy, as stretching Cathedral 

in death, especially in a violent one, is proverbial and as when the in Boston 

breast rises with expiring breath and extremities recedes." 

The Centinel of Oct. l, 1803, in describing the church, states it is Sargent's 

adorned with a very excellent picture of the Crucifixion from the Portraits 

pencil of Mr. Henry Sargent. W'hat the artist's works were between 

1805 and 1815 can only be conjectured. He painted the portrait of 

Peter Faneuil in Faneuil Hall, copied after the one by Copley. His 

portrait of Gen. Richard Devens, who died at the age of eighty-six 

years in Charlestown in 1807, is one of Sargent's finest efforts. This 

portrait is hung in the public reading-rooms in Charlestown. Richard 

Devens was the son of a Charlestown cooper, born in 1721. In 1757 

he was an ensign in the expedition of that year against the French. 

When the signal appeared in Christ Church tower the night before 

the battle of Concord and Lexington, Devens, a member of the Com- 



l6 SITES on a7i OLD THOROUGHFARE 

mittee of Safety, despatched a messenger with the intelligence of a 
British expedition to Arlington and Lexington. He was a member 
of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress 1774-1775 and on many- 
important committees. In 1776 he was commissary-general for the 
State and served during the war. He became a highly prosperous 
merchant and at his death in 1807, at the age of eighty-six, he left 
an estate valued at about $120,000, a part of which was bestowed in 
charity. His portrait by Sargent was bequeathed to the Charles- 
town Library by Miss Charlotte Harris, his granddaughter, a liberal 
benefactor. Other subjects of Sargent's work were Gen. Henry 
Knox, who died in Thomaston, Me., in 1806; Rev. John Clark of the 
First Church, Boston, and Rev. Jeremy Belknap, both of whom died 
in 1798; Rev. Jedediah Morse of Charlestown and his wife, parents of 
Samuel F. B. Morse, were also painted by Sargent. The artist's best 
ivork is considered to be that of his son, John Turner Sargent, painted 
about 1823, when the boy was ten years old. 
" r/j^ A lengthy advertisement appeared in the Columbian Centinel, 
Landing pf \iarch 4, 1815, stating that the celebrated painting "The Landing of 
Fathers''' ^^^ Pilgrim Fathers," painted by H. Sargent, Esq., was being exhibited 
exhibited on near the corner of Walnut and Beacon Streets, a location in the rear 
Heacon HiU ^f some unfinished buildings owned by Uriah Cotting on the north 
side of Walnut Street. Admittance was twenty-five cents and season 
tickets were one dollar. The canvas contained upwards of two 
hundred square feet and had between thirty and forty life-sized 
figures. The point of time chosen for the picture was soon after the 
landing in 1620, when Samoset came up boldly and alone, saying, 
"Welcome, Englishmen!" 

The advertisement contained a eulogy on the Pilgrim Fathers and 
a request for the patronage of the public. By May, 1815, it was 
advertised that the painting would probably be sent to New York. 
Isaiah Thomas in his diary under the 25th of May said he "went to 
view Sargent's painting of the Landing of the forefathers," and he 
said that it was exhibited in the great hall of the Exchange Coffee 
The House. After its first exhibition in Boston it is said to have been 

Picture exhibited about the country and that the rolling and unrolling of the 

given to 11111- 

Pilgrim canvas cracked and completely rumed the painting. Some years later 

Society the artist repainted the picture and gave it to the Pilgrim Society of 

Plymouth (Dec. 22, 1824). It was then described as thirteen by 

sixteen feet, with seventeen people represented in it, and its value 



SITES on mi OLD THOROUGHFARE 



was placed at ^3,000. The painting still hangs in Pilgrim Hall at 

Plymouth and is one of the attractions of the town. 

Another Bentley wrote in his diary, Nov. 13, 1817: "The picture of the 

Sargent entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, by Sargent, had not the effect of 

Ficture ^j^^ Landing of the Forefathers. The eyes of Jesus not on things 

around him, too many devotional postures for common joys and too 

many positions of rest and altar attitudes being besides general 

confusion from many objects not characterized properly." The size 

of this painting was eighteen by fifteen feet and an engraving was 

made on copper by J. R. Penniman which appeared in the Analectic 

Magazine for January, 1818. 

Residence Henry Sargent's residence was at 10 Franklin Place, now Franklin 

of the Street. He is said to have had a studio at i School Street, and in 

'^ " 1820 he had a room which he used for a studio in the Colson-Baker 

house, where probably he painted the canvas known as "The Dinner 

Party." In the Cenlinel of May 26, 1821, the following advertisement 

appeared: 

"The Dinner Party." 

"The New Picture painted by Col. Henry Sargent. Is open for public 
view at Mr. D. L. Brown's room No. 12 Cornhill square adjoining his Academy 
every day from 9 in the morning till 5 in the evening. Admittance 25 cents." 



Colonel 

Sargent 

elected a 

Member 

of the 

American 

Academy of 

Fine Arts 



The exhibition was to close Sept. 8, 1821, after which the picture 
was removed to New York. On Dec. 17, 1821, it was again on 
exhibition. The experience in New York and Philadelphia proved 
the convenience of exhibiting by illumination, and the painting was 
ready for view every day except Sunday and in the evenings until 
nine o'clock. Colonel Sargent's exhibit of the picture in various cities 
was followed by his election as a member to the American Academy 
of Fine Arts. Other pictures painted by him were: "The Starved 
Apothecary," "The Tailor's News," and "The Tea Part}-." 



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22 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 



ANOTHER NOTABLE FAMILY OCCUPIES THE OLD 
PREMISES 

The famous Colson-Baker estate at 192 Washington Street besides 
being associated with Colonel Sargent was occupied by an equally 
famous family — the Warrens. Among the descendants of John 
\A'arren who settled in Watertown in 163 1 was Josiah Warren, a 
captain of artillery in the Revolution, living at Brighton. His son 
was Capt. Joseph Warren, a carpenter, who was also sexton of the 
church and maker of coffins. Joseph in 1797 married Sally Brown, 
and among their children were George W., John A., Alfred B., and 
James L. L. F. ^^'arren. In 1827 the last-named opened a dry goods 
store at 117 \^'ashington Street, nearly opposite the head of Water 
Street. He removed in 1834 to 85 Washington Street at the corner 
of Court Avenue near the head of State Street. Later, his brothers 
joining him in business, the firm became George W. Warren & Com- 
pany. J. L. L. F. Warren was also interested in horticulture and 
carried on the Nonantum Vale Gardens at Brighton from 1820 until 
1845, where he received many visitors, among them noted men of 
that period. Mr. Warren travelled in Europe, delivering temperance 
lectures, and he also appeared on the American platform. He was one of 
those who went to California in '49, where he resided until quite aged. 
George George Washington Warren carried on a successful business at 
Washington g- W'ashington Street up to 1843 when he removed to 192 Washington 

J r (ITT C ft 

removes to Street. It was at this time that the front of that building was changed 

ig2 and the windows of the two upper floors enlarged and lengthened. 

// ashington ]\/[j. Warren was the pioneer in Boston of the one-price cash svstem, 

Street i • ' 

and also of the employment of women clerks. With the crash of 1857 

he failed, and the following year he was the company in the firm of 

William B. Barry & Company, and later became a buyer for Jordan 

Marsh Company which succeeded to the business. G. W. Warren 

later became superintendent for the agency of the New York Life 

Insurance Company and he was also interested in banking with Asa P. 

Potter. John A. Warren, who died about 1895, was also a salesman 

in the store of Jordan, Marsh & Company. 



24 



SITES 071 an OLD THOROUGHFARE 




THACHER 1 



THE OLD MORTON BLOCK IN 1852 

Site occupied by Macullar, tJ'illiatns ^ Company in 1S54. 



Macullar, 

Williams i^ 

Company 

removes 

from 

Worcester 

to North 

Street, 

Boston 



EARLY DAYS OF AN OLD CONSERVATIVE FIRM 

In a shop — No. 35 — on the right-hand side of North Street going 
from Union Street was located in 1852 the firm of Macullar, Williams 
& Company. Addison Macullar, who in 1849 with George B. Williams 
and C. R. Monies opened in Worcester a store for the sale of ready- 
made clothing at retail, was the founder. In 1854 the firm moved 
to 47 Milk Street — the present corner of Milk and Devonshire Streets 
— and below Morton Place (now Arch Street) on the north side of 
Milk. During the financial panic of 1857, in order to dispose of their 
surplus stock of clothing, the firm moved to the Old Washington 
Coffee House building at 158 Washington Street. The old Coffee 
House had an interesting history. In the last decade of the eighteenth 
century it was run as a boarding-house and then stood at what was 
37 Marlborough Street. It figured prominently in Boston's annals 
in the early years of the nineteenth century, when it was known as 
the Indian Queen Tavern, and was the stage house, or starting-point 
for the Groton and Leominster stages. About 1820 its name was 
changed to the Washington Coffee House and from it started a num- 
ber of stage routes. Among the stages which took on and left pas- 
sengers at this place were those which ran to South Boston, Bridge- 



SITES on mi OLD THOROUGHFARE 25 

water, Randolph, Foxboro, Sharon, Medfield, Medway, Mendon, 
Woonsocket, Easton, Stoughton, and Taunton. Here, too, was the 
rendezvous of the Manufacturers Line of Providence Stages. It 
ceased to be a stage house in 1855. 

Macullar, \\'illiams &. Company in i860 removed to 192 Washington -phe firm cf 
Street, and it was also in that year that Mr. Charles W. Parker Macullar, 
became a member of the firm. The site, as has already been stated, Jf^iU'^ams U 
had been occupied by George W. Warren &; Company for the dry ^i 102 ' 
goods business. Washington 

A large five-foot passageway, already mentioned, disappeared when S/rf^i 
400 Washington Street front was built in 1864. Its site was about 
the centre of 400 Washington Street, where the store occupied by 
Macullar Parker Company now is. South of this in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries was the estate of the Marion family. In 
1 741 Joseph Marion conveyed the property to John Erving, a wealthy 
merchant, who had a pronounced habit of acquiring other people's 
real estate through mortgages held by him. The property was 
extensive, and included five houses, four shops, a stable, yards and 
gardens, occupied by ten tenants. The most northerly of the houses 
was of wood, three stories high, and was occupied by numerous tenants 
during the last half of the eighteenth century. In 1792 it passed from 
the possession of the heirs of William, son of John Erving, to William 
l,each. The house had a frontage of nineteen feet on Marlborough 
Street, but its depth was about ninety feet. On the lower floor Leach 
had his saddler's shop. He lived on the floors above. Samuel Swett, 
a merchant, bought the property from Leach in 1805, and the same 
year he conveyed it to John Osborn who had begun his career as a 
painter on the site of the Crown Coffee House on Long Wharf. Later 
Osborn became a prosperous merchant, taking up his residence in 
the Harrison Gray Otis house — now the headquarters of the Society 
for the Preservation of New England Antiquities on Lynde Street. 
On his death Osborn left the Leach house to his daughter, Elizabeth, 
wife of Alexander Mactier of New York. Her trustee sold the 
house to Henry Sargent in 1842 at the same time he bought the 
Colson-Baker house. This gave him the ownership of the sites of 
the two buildings which have been occupied by Macullar Parker 
Company. 

The tenants of 198 Washington Street during the first half of the 
last century were numerous and varied. After Mr. Sargent bought 



SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 



27 



the property the wooden house was replaced by a brick structure, 
shown in the engraving of 1853. The store was occupied by John 
Fletcher, a tea merchant, whose business was absorbed by Redding & 
Company in 1847. George W. Redding and A. Williams, who had a 
book-store and a depot for Redding's Russia Salve at 8 State Street, 
carried on this tea business. At their store was Ar Show, a Chinaman, 
the first Chinaman to live in Boston. Above the tea-store was 
Mooney's hair-dressing rooms, and on the top floor John C. Haskell, 
a manufacturer, was established. Redding & Company were 
succeeded at 198 Washington Street by Thomas Whytal, tea dealer, 
and Ar Show established himself at 21 Union Street. 

After the death of Henry Sargent the property at 196 and 198 
Washington Street — a part of his estate — was ofltered for sale and 
purchased by the trustees of the Estate of Joshua Sears, who erected 
thereon a store building for Macullar, Williams & Parker. This 
building was destroyed in the Great Fire of Nov. 9, 1872 — a fire which 
broke out on Saturday night — just a year after the conflagration in 
Chicago. A historian tells the story — and it is a strange one — of a 
man, unknown in his day, who had informed himself concerning the 
material composing the roofs of the attractive stores in which the 
fire originated, and who wrote a letter of warning to one of the daily 
papers saying that if fire got among the buildings they would be 
devoured like so much chafl". In condemning the Mansard roofs, he 
predicted that "when that dozen lumber yards on the roofs is once 
full of fire the devouring element will be taken, not in little sparks 
only, but by cords, into and upon every building within half a mile. 
Every window on the line of the gale will be beaten in by fiery brands 
to every place where there is wood for fire to catch upon, and fires will 
soon be rushing from fifty of those windows or roaring from the 
exposed wood. Such a fire (and it will surely occur) will stop just 
where there is no wood to burn. The earnest men of the fire depart- 
ment will be inefficient. There will come the story so lately told of 
Chicago: 'Awful conflagration! Boston in ruins I Thousands of 
homes in the burned portion of the city in ashes!'" This conflagration 
predicted did come — much to Boston's sorrow — and the story is 
frequently repeated. A horse epidemic had broken out, which 
crippled the use of engines, leaving men to draw them instead of beasts 
of burden. The flames raged for hours, sweeping the east side of 
Washington Street from Summer to Milk, and leaving only the white 



Henry 
Sargent 
once Ozvner 
of the Site 



Ar Show 
Boston s 
First 
Chinaman 



Building of 
Macullar, 
IVilliams i^ 
Parker 
destroyed by 
the Great 
Fire of 1872 



Prophecy 
concerning 
the Fire 



28 SITES on an OLD THOROUGHFARE 

marble fa(;ade of Macullar, Williams Sc Parker's building standing. 
The Old South Meeting-house was injured but not destroyed. 

The present building occupied by Macullar Parker Company was 
erected after the fire, and its plan is practically the same as the one 
destroyed, with various improvements added. No. 398 Washington 
Street (formerly 192), the building adjoining, was vacated when the 
firm of Palmers & Batchelders retired from business, and this was 
annexed by Macullar, Parker & Company and a new department 
opened there. 

Macullar, Parker & Company purchased the Joshua M. Sears 
Estate in 1893. It is now owned by the Business Real Estate Trust 
of Boston. Numbered 200 Washington Street before the Great Fire 
of 1872, the site became 400 when Washington Street was extended 
to Haymarket Square. 

This concludes the review of the residents and changes in the 
locality where has been conducted for more than half a century the 
business of Macullar Parker Company. The site of the present 
building furnishes an excellent example of the changes Washington 
Street has undergone from the days of the first settler, through nearly 
three centuries of town and city life, to the present time. 




m CHRONOLOGY M 

1S49 

Business established by Addison MacuUar in Worcester, Mass. 

1852 

Mr. George B. Williams, a former clerk with Mr. Macullar, is taken into the 
firm, and Macullar, Williams & Company formed. A store is opened in 
Boston at 35 and 37 Ann (now North) Street, for tlie manufacture and sale 
of clothing at wholesale. 

1S54 

The firm moved to 47 Milk Street. 

1S57 

In order to dispose of their surplus stock the firm took temporarily the Old 
Washington Coffee House building at 158 Washington Street. This was the 
first large clothing stock to be exhibited on Washington Street. 

1S60 

The company removes to 192 Washington Street, the store formerly occupied 
by George W. Warren & Company. Mr. Charles W. Parker, for some years 
associated with the firm "as boy, book-keeper, and salesman," was admitted 
to the firm, the name being changed to Macullar, Williams &: Parker. 

1864 

Removed to new building at 200 Washington Street, erected for the company 
by the Joshua Sears Estate. This building was burned in the Great Fire of 
1872. 33 Washington Street was occupied during the rebuilding. 

1884 

The adjoining store, 192-198 (now 392-398), was annexed. This is the site 

of the old Warren store previously occupied in i860. 

1895 

The business was incorporated as Macullar Parker Company. 

1918 

At the expiration of leases of the two stores the business was consolidated in 
400 Washington Street, some 6,000 square feet being added by connecting 
the Hawley Street and Washington Street buildings at each of the five floors. 

MACULLAR PARKER COMPANY 

I 9 I 8 

James L. Wessox, Prcsidciil a>id Treasurer 
Hatherly Foster, Assistant Treasurer 
Ross Parker, Vice President 
Herman Parker, Clerk 

30 



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